Monday, October 27

Please note that this post does not have anything to do with teenage vampires. Or werewolves, for that matter. Rather, it is the result of not getting the garlic planted in my garden earlier in the month, when I took a day off work to do just that.

With the nice weather we've been having, I knew I'd have to commit to this task early in the week, lest I end up having to do it after the weather turns. So, I committed to planting the garlic today. I intended on leaving work a little early (or at least on time), but that did not happen. Still, I was able to get about half of the garlic planted before supper. I hurried up and ate and went back out, but it was getting dark already (and this fact isn't going to improve after the weekend). But, I did manage to get all of the garlic planted.

Unfortunately, I have a bunch of other things that need to be done outside and it appears that I'm running out of time, but at least this task is done.

Sunday, October 26

Brian and I finished installing the railing for the office porch yesterday. Whew! It turned out really nice, if I do say so myself. We ran out of time because we had a Halloween party to go to, so we were not able to install the hardware cloth around the base of the porch, but that's a pretty small job so I'm sure we'll be able to squeeze it in at some point before the snow flies.

As for the Halloween party--it was a costume one. This was the first time I wore a costume since I was a teenager. Not one for dressing up, I found an idea for a "selfie" costume, which Jake created for me. It turned out great! Brian went as a lumberjack (which, surprisingly, didn't involve much of a change to his wardrobe) and Jake wore a red Morphsuit (which made him I don't know what).

Sunday, October 19

A couple of weeks ago we started to replace the back porch at the office. We're making good progress, but it's not quite done yet. All of the decking is down (including the trap door), so we can check that off the list. I finished patching the concrete in the brick columns yesterday, too. And, we started on the railing. It was a pain to figure out the first one, but I think the next three will go a lot more quickly now that we have the process figured out. But, that will have to wait till next weekend, because this is going to be a busy week.

Saturday, October 18

Based on a "true story", this movie told the tale of a family that is haunted by a demonic presence at their recently purchased farmhouse. I thought the movie was ok, but nothing special. Brian really liked it, though he does like a good ghost story.

Friday, October 17

Today was a beautiful day. Surely, one of the last ones for the year. Coincidentally, I had today off work. My intentions were to plant garlic in the garden, but I still had a bunch of stuff growing in the garden, so I ended up removing that instead. I had a nice harvest of carrots, scallions, beans, cherry tomatoes and peppers.

I still have some weeding to do before I get to the garlic, but hopefully all of this will get done soon. It is difficult to get anything done outside since it gets dark so early now, but I guess I'll figure something out.

I did zilch outside last month, so there are plenty of other things to do (putting away the motorcycles, flower garden cleanup, getting the patio ready for winter, etc.). I do not know where this year got to.

Sunday, October 12

We really like the downtown version of Press Bistro (though we've only been there for lunch so far), so we thought we'd give their airport location a try. We went out for dinner last night with Carol and Bob to do just that.

They had a pretty limited menu. It consisted of some appetizers, a bunch of burgers, a couple chicken sandwiches and a couple salads. The food was average. The service was great (though we were the only patrons there for the first hour or so of our dinner). I think I'll stick to the downtown location, though.

Saturday, October 11

Despite clocking in at 181 pages, this book took me weeks to read. Not because it wasn't good -- it was quite good -- but because it coincided with me installing Scrabble on my phone. I. Cannot. Stop. Playing.

Witches...childhood...memories...I'm struggling to explain the plot, so just read it.

Sunday, October 5

A couple we are friends with invited us to a Steeler party at their house this afternoon. I used to work with the male half of the couple, so there were a few other former co-workers in attendance, too. It was good to get caught up with those people. I can't say I watched any of the game, but I did have a good time.

Afterward, we went to the office and put down a couple more deck boards. We're over halfway done! But, now we're at the point where we have to figure out the trap door. We talked through it today and I think we got things figured out (mentally speaking). We'll see how it works out in reality. I hope to get some more work done on the project this week, but we'll have to see how things are going as weekdays are usually pretty busy.

Saturday, October 4

The back porch decking and railing at our office has needed replaced since we bought the place in 2008. Recently Brian made the proclamation that it wasn't going to last another winter, so I had to get it on the schedule. We started on the project today. Everything went as planned (for a change) and we're exactly where I hoped to be with the project.

We removed all of the old stuff, which will be taken to the dump on Monday. The only wrinkle we ran into was that Brian had to replace the pipe that goes to our outside spigot and we had to run to the hardware store for a part. All of the wood underneath the deck was sound, so that made the day easier. We did get about a third of the deck down this afternoon. Jake was a huge help, so much so that I mostly stood around and fetched things.

It's not as simple as putting the rest of the deck down, though. Under the porch, there's a stairwell that goes to the basement, so we need to figure out a trap door for that. We kind of have an idea what we're going to do, but don't have all of the details hammered out yet. Then there's the railing to do, which seems like it should be pretty easy, but who knows?

Our old railing went into brick columns so there are some holes that need to be filled and there's some painting to do, but that stuff will likely have to wait till spring.

Thursday, October 2

Lizzy continues to be stable, though she hasn't improved much in the past week. In fact, we had a little backslide when we reduced her medication early in the week, so now she's back to the higher dose. She's able to walk and stand, but she's still pretty unstable. I know this took a long time to resolve the first time, but I just wish I could remember more details about it so I had a better idea of how she's doing.